Thursday, July 24, 2014

Fr Georges Massouh: Barbarism Three Times Over

Gaza, Aleppo, Mosul. Death three times over. Countries of horror. Land of absolute evil. The time of reaping has come. The scythe slashes through heads and bodies. The vampires will not be satisfied.

Gaza, Aleppo, Mosul. Three corners of a triangle. The borders of the Levant are drowning in the blood of its children. Borders drawn with the blood of human victims. Victims of blind hate. Victims of religious and sectarian extremism. Victims of racism. Sacred texts bear their teeth. Their mouths open wide, thirsting for flesh and blood. Kill. Fight. Exterminate. Expel. Burn. Extirpate. Behead. Slaughter. Take captives. Chase them from their homes... Sacred texts carry the weight of these acts. Multifaceted texts from which the reader selects what suits him and justifies his perverse lusts, ignoring the verses that call for peace, love and mercy...

Texts of ink and paper have become more precious than human flesh and blood. The human person, whom God honors and prefers over all creatures has become a worm crushed by a hateful, murderous butcher-god...

"You are the best community that has been raised up for mankind. You enjoin right conduct and forbid indecency" (Surat Al Imran 110). Has slaughtering Mosul's Christians like sheep and expelling them become the right conduct that the Qur'an commands? Has protecting their blood, livelihood, and churches become indecency? Did you face Mecca when you slaughtered them so that your sacrifice would be halal and your consciences at ease?

Did you say "in the name of God, the munificent, the merciful" when you slit their throats? How do you believe in the munificent, merciful God yet show no mercy or compassion to humans? How do you cry out "God is most great" yet make yourself greater than God who creates souls and takes them at the hour of His choosing? How do you cry out "God is most great" yet treat humans with pride, arrogance and contempt?

As for "God's chosen people", chosen exclusively be an irrevocable agency! "You have seen all that the Lord your God has done to all these nations because of you, for the Lord your God is He who has fought for you" (Joshua 23:3). Their god fought for them and exterminated the nations of the land that they occupied. Will their god spare Gaza? In the name that very same god they pick a fight over Gaza and appropriate it.

But the members of ISIS also believe that God fights for them: "You did not kill them, but rather God killed them. You did not throw when you threw, but rather God threw" (Surat al-Anfal 17). The ISISites have returned to a religion from before the Prophet Abraham. God stopped Abraham from offering his son as a sacrifice and sent him a ram from heaven in his place. God rendered human sacrifices null and void and replaced them with animal sacrifices. But the followers of al-Baghdadi continue to lust for human sacrifices. Woe to them and to their worship!

As for Christians, over history they have not hesitated to launch wars and commit massacres in the name of the God of love. This list is long, and we will not mention any of them other than what has happened in Lebanon during the constant sectarian wars over the past century and a half. In the name of defending Christian existence, the Christians were led to commit heinous acts that please neither Christ nor the saints of His Church.

Jews, Christians, Muslims are equal in sin just as in righteousness. The Sunni people of Gaza do not incite Sunni regimes to behave honorably, so how can a handful of Christians in this raging sea incite them to behave honorably?

Gaza, Aleppo, Mosul. Three times over the line is drawn between humanity and barbarism. Zionism, ISIS and sectarianism are merely aspects of the same barbarism.